


Worth Something

by Riona



Category: Danganronpa 3, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: First Meeting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7760944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Twilight Syndrome events, Hinata tried to speak to Koizumi.</p>
<p>Maybe he managed it.</p>
<p>(Chapter Two: Hinata meets Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hinata and Koizumi are two of my favourite characters, so I was slightly devastated that DR3 waved around the prospect of a meeting between them and then refused to deliver. Despair!

“Koizumi?”

He has to say it a second time before she looks up. Her eyes are bloodshot; her face is red. It’s clear in an instant that she’s been crying.

Hinata suddenly feels uncomfortable. He shouldn’t be intruding like this. But he saw her sitting by the fountain, and... he couldn’t pass it up, the chance to find out what really happened to Natsumi Kuzuryuu.

“I know you,” she says, with the ghost of a frown.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “I’m only a Reserve Course student.”

“You’re in Sato’s class.” Her voice almost seems to flinch away from the name.

He wouldn’t have expected her to remember his face. He knows hers, of course; she visited their classroom to speak to Sato often. But she’s from the Main Course, and he’s a nobody.

“My name’s Hinata,” he says. “Can I talk to you?”

She looks blankly at him for a moment, then shrugs. Hinata has the distinct feeling she doesn’t have the energy to object. It makes him a little uneasy.

He sits down next to her and waits for her to speak first. If she doesn’t, he guesses he’ll leave.

“If you’re going to talk, talk,” she says eventually. “You didn’t ask if you could sit with me in creepy silence. That’s a different question.”

It throws him off a little. She seemed so timid in front of Kuzuryuu, but he guesses there was a lot of history there. “Sorry. I wanted to give you a chance to change your mind.”

“It takes a lot to change my mind.” She’s been kind of staring into space; he’s pretty sure she’s mostly seeing Sato. Now she actually seems to focus on him for the first time, and a frown crosses her face. “You’re bruised.”

Hinata swipes a hand across his cheek, self-consciously. His whole body still aches. “Guess so.”

“What happened?”

“I tried to get into the Main Course building.”

Koizumi raises her eyebrows. “And you missed the door?”

“It was a security guard,” Hinata says. “He wasn’t happy about a Reserve Course student trying to get into the Main Course. He decided to express his unhappiness by stepping on me.”

“Oh, God, I know the one you mean,” Koizumi says. “He always gives me and Sato a hard time for hanging out together.” She seems to realise, halfway through her sentence, that she’s used the wrong tense, and her voice wavers. “Were you meeting someone, or were you planning to spy on the classes?”

Hinata hesitates briefly. “I was trying to see you.”

Koizumi’s eyes widen. She touches her cheek, the spot where Hinata’s bruising is worst.

“I’m sorry I got you stepped on,” she says, after a moment.

“You don’t have to apologise,” Hinata says. “I’m guessing you didn’t employ that guy.”

“It looks really bad. You should tell the headmaster he attacked you.”

Hinata shrugs. “He wouldn’t be interested. I’m only a Reserve Course student.”

Koizumi frowns. “Stop saying that.”

“You don’t think this school treats us like dirt?”

“You don’t have to sound like you agree with it.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that.

“Sato was in the Reserve Course,” Koizumi says. “She was worth something. And she made me feel like I was worth something too.” It’s clear that it costs her something to say it. “Don’t talk like she didn’t matter.”

Hinata looks at her for a moment.

“I always kind of assumed that everyone in the Main Course was really confident,” he says, eventually. “You’re talented. You _know_ you have talent. You’ve had it officially recognised.” It’s the feeling he’s always craved: walking through those gates with pride, knowing he’s not just one of the faceless horde.

“I’m nothing special,” Koizumi says, looking down at the camera slung over her shoulder. “I just take photographs. And it’s not like mine are the best out there. I think they probably just pulled my name out of a hat.”

Hinata shakes his head. “Anyone could see you’re talented. You, Nanami... there’s something real there. It’s almost like a glow. We don’t have that in the Reserve Course.”

Actually, that’s not entirely true. He’d got the same sense from Kuzuryuu, the feeling that this person was someone special. Maybe she really did belong in the Main Course.

Koizumi gives him a sidelong, suspicious look. “Is that meant to be some kind of pick-up line?”

Is it? Is it possible that the ‘glow’ really just marks out everyone he’s attracted to? It’s an uncomfortable thought. He tries to push it away. “I’m not going to try to pick you up when...” He gestures vaguely, because _when your friend’s just been killed_ seems like a harsh thing to say. “I’m not a vulture.”

“If you’re saying you might try to pick me up later, I’m going to find it really hard to trust you.”

“I’m not saying that,” Hinata says.

She looks narrowly at him for a moment longer. “Okay.”

There’s a moment’s silence. Hinata shifts awkwardly.

“You mentioned Nanami,” Koizumi says. “You know her?”

It somehow feels presumptuous to say he _knows_ her. “We play games together sometimes.”

Koizumi actually smiles a little at that. “I suppose that makes sense. So what did you want to talk about?”

Hinata pauses. They’ve kind of been having a conversation, and... it’s been good, even if Koizumi’s prickly and grieving. Talking to Koizumi, talking to Nanami... maybe it’s pathetic, but just being around talented people like that makes him feel more real. Again, he got the same feeling with Kuzuryuu, even if she was a Reserve Course student.

And now he has to come to why he’s actually here, and he doesn’t know if she’s going to want to keep talking.

“It’s about Kuzuryuu,” he says.

He hears her breath catch.

“Natsumi or Fuyuhiko?” she asks, after a few seconds.

Is Fuyuhiko the brother she adored? “Natsumi.”

Koizumi closes her eyes for a moment. Nods.

“I heard you talking to Sato just after the murder,” Hinata says.

She flares up in an instant. “You were listening in?”

There’s fear beneath the anger in her voice. Hinata winces. “I wasn’t hiding in the bushes or anything. I was just there.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She shakes her head. “I can’t talk about this.”

He was half-expecting it, and he’s not about to push her, not when she’s in more pain than he is over this. Sato was obviously really important to her; Kuzuryuu was someone Hinata was only just starting to connect with. But it still stings, knowing he’s not going to get any answers. “I understand.”

“You _don’t_ ,” she snaps, and for a second she breathes like she’s about to leap from a precipice before she says, “I think one of my classmates killed Sato.”

Hinata has his own ideas about what happened to Sato. When a member of the Kuzuryuu family is killed, and someone looks like a possible suspect...

“You’re in the same class as Kuzuryuu’s brother?” he asks.

She nods, and then she looks up at him, her eyes strangely bright with tears. “Maybe he heard me talking to Sato,” she says. “Maybe he saw my photographs. Maybe I caused this.”

Photographs? Does she have evidence from Kuzuryuu’s murder?

But her voice is breaking, and he can’t bring himself to pursue this right now. “You didn’t kill anyone.”

“But they died because of me,” she says. “Both of them.”

Hinata hesitates.

“So you think Sato was the killer,” he says.

She glares at him through her tears. “And I suppose you’re the Super High-School Level Detective they're supposedly trying to scout?”

Her tone is so vicious that he edges away. “Sorry. I’m just trying to understand why two of my classmates were killed.”

“Right now, all I know is that I talked about the Kuzuryuu murder with a friend of mine,” Koizumi says. “And a few days later my friend was dead. And now you want to talk about it. How do you think I’m going to feel if the same thing happens to you?”

Hinata stares at her.

According to the security guard, she wouldn’t care. Nobody would care. They’re just Reserve Course fodder; does it matter if a few of them get killed off?

But this girl who barely knows him is worried about his safety, she’s sitting out here crying over her friend in the Reserve Course, and, just for an instant, he catches himself wondering if the security guard was wrong.

“We could talk about Sato instead,” he says, eventually. “Not what happened. Just... what I remember of her. If you want.”

She takes a moment to compose herself, then gives him a half-smile. “That sounds good.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wasn't expecting to write a second chapter to this, and then somehow it happened! I just can't get enough of pre-Kamukura Hinata interacting with the rest of the second-game cast.

“Hey,” Hinata says to Koizumi, a handful of meetings later, when their conversation is winding up. “Can you point Kuzuryuu’s brother out to me? You know, if he ever comes by us?”

Koizumi looks sharply at him. “You’re planning to talk to him?”

Hinata makes a carefully ambiguous noise.

“Hinata,” Koizumi says. “I can’t believe I actually have to tell you this, but it’s not a good idea to get involved with the Kuzuryuu clan. He’s always throwing threats around. I used to think he was just full of it, but then...” She shrugs, uncomfortably. “Well, you know what happened to Sato.”

He _doesn’t_ know what happened to Sato. Not really. That’s the problem. Two of his classmates died, and he won’t be able to put it behind him until...

He’ll never be able to put it behind him. But maybe, if he knows why they were killed, it’ll at least do _something_ to settle this feeling in his chest.

“I just want to know what he looks like,” he says. “So I know to steer clear. I swear I’m not planning to do anything stupid.”

-

The guy Koizumi points out to him really isn’t what Hinata was expecting. He can see the resemblance to Natsumi, yeah, so strongly that his heart seemed to clench at the first sight of Fuyuhiko; he actually nudged Koizumi and asked whether that was him before she’d had a chance to say anything. He’s not in any doubt that they’re siblings. But this guy’s meant to be the next leader of Japan’s most notorious crime family, and he looks like a porcelain doll.

Probably for the best that Kuzuryuu doesn’t look as intimidating as Hinata was expecting. It makes it easier to approach him.

Sorry, Koizumi.

“You’re Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu?”

Kuzuryuu grunts. An affirmative sound, but not a friendly one. He doesn’t move from his position, leaning against the barred fence surrounding the Reserve Course buildings.

“I knew your sister,” Hinata says. “I—”

The bars of the fence crack into his head so hard his vision goes white. When he comes back to himself, Kuzuryuu has him pinned to the fence, its metal cold against his back and his neck and his wrists.

“Don’t talk about her,” Kuzuryuu says, breathing hard. “Don’t say a fucking word.”

This seems like sensible advice. Hinata doesn’t say a fucking word.

There’s a silence, far too long. Hinata counts his own heartbeats in his head, just to distract himself, to detach himself from the fact that he’s trapped between cold iron and a guy who’s probably already murdered someone he knows.

“How did you know her?” Kuzuryuu asks at last, loosening his grip on Hinata’s wrists by a fraction.

_I thought you told me not to talk about her._ It’s probably not a great idea to say that out loud.

“We were in the same class,” Hinata says. “In the Reserve Course.”

Kuzuryuu shakes his head. “Tch. She should’ve been in the Main Course with us. Maybe then...”

Silence again. At least Hinata feels slightly less like he’s about to be murdered this time.

“So I guess you were one of her enemies,” Kuzuryuu says at last.

What kind of assumption is that? “We were friends. I mean, I thought we might be starting to – I hoped we would be friends.”

Kuzuryuu gives him a narrow, searching look. It’s more than a little uncomfortable, with him still so close. “My sister wasn’t really the making-friends type.”

It feels dangerous to agree, somehow. “We talked a few times. Not enough.” _She reminded me of myself. She kept threatening other students, and I was trying to stop her from getting herself kicked out of school. She adored you._ There’s no right thing to say. “I thought she was interesting.”

Kuzuryuu huffs out a flat laugh. “Interesting. Right. I bet you were too intimidated to say a word to her.”

“I had enough nerve to talk to you, right?”

Shit. Shouldn’t have said that. He really needs to think about _all_ of his responses when he’s in a situation like this. Don’t talk back to gangsters, Hinata.

But he still seems to have all of his fingers, somehow.

“She called herself the Super High-School Level Little Sister,” Hinata says.

Kuzuryuu’s grip tightens convulsively, just for an instant, and then he lets go of Hinata and steps back. Hinata rubs his head, wincing; it still hasn’t forgotten its impact with the bars. He doesn’t move away from the fence. To be honest, the fence is kind of holding him up right now.

“Okay,” Kuzuryuu says. “So you knew her. That doesn’t mean we’re pals. I don’t owe you any favours.”

Hinata shakes his head. “I wasn’t planning to ask you for anything. I just... I want to know what happened to her.”

Kuzuryuu gives him a bitter look. It feels like it wants to be angry, but there’s just no energy behind it. “She died.”

“I – I know that. I’m asking, do you believe the story that some outsider broke into the school?”

“Does it matter? She’s still fucking dead.”

Hinata grips the bars behind him, feels the pitted metal against his palms. He’s been trying not to think about it, but it’s crept across his mind before. If he ever does manage to find out exactly what happened, what will that leave him with? Two classmates just as dead as when he started, and nothing to distract him from that reality.

“And you’re an idiot for asking,” Kuzuryuu says. “If it wasn’t over already, I’d think you did it. Go around asking people what they believe, you’ll sound like you’re worried about what they might know.”

Fuck! “I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I was – I have an alibi, my parents—”

“I know it wasn’t you,” Kuzuryuu interrupts him. “I’m just saying, watch your neck when you talk to people about this shit.”

It’s only then that what Kuzuryuu said a moment ago really filters through. _If it wasn’t over already._

The official story is that Natsumi Kuzuryuu was murdered by a pervert who broke into the school. No suspects have been arrested. It isn’t _over_.

Not unless her brother thinks it was Sato.

It’s confirmation of what really happened, or close enough. And it doesn’t loosen the knot in Hinata’s chest at all. He should’ve just been satisfied with the tentative new friendship that seems to be forming between him and Koizumi; he shouldn’t have gone poking around dangerous criminal gangs. Kuzuryuu just pretty much admitted to killing Sato; what if he _realises_ that?

“That’s all I’m going to say,” Kuzuryuu says. “Don’t talk to me about this again.” And then the actual heir of the Kuzuryuu family looks over towards the Main Course building and mutters, bizarrely, “I’ll be late for class if I don’t head off.”

“You’re not going to kill me?” Hinata asks.

Seriously. He needs to think before he speaks.

Kuzuryuu frowns at him. “You say that like you’re worried I’ve forgotten to.”

“It’s not that,” Hinata says, quickly. “If you don’t want to kill me, I’m definitely fine with that. There was just, uh, there was a moment there when I really wasn’t sure how this was going to end.”

Kuzuryuu shrugs. “You haven’t wronged me. You haven’t wronged my family.”

There’s a pause. Hinata keeps himself very still. Kuzuryuu seems to be hesitating, for some reason, and Hinata’s not really going to feel like he’s survived this encounter until the guy’s actually out of sight.

“Besides,” Kuzuryuu says, eventually. “Not many people shed tears when a Kuzuryuu dies. If there’s someone outside our family who might think fondly of my sister, I’m not planning to throw that away.”

When the light catches him at certain angles, it’s almost like seeing her alive again. He probably killed Sato, and yet there’s a part of Hinata that wants to connect with him somehow.

“I didn’t know her for long,” Hinata says. “But I’ll remember her for you.”

Kuzuryuu turns away. “Thanks.”


End file.
